The human heart can suffer from various valvular diseases. These valvular diseases can result in significant malfunctioning of the heart and ultimately require replacement of the native valve with an artificial valve. There are a number of known artificial valves and a number of known methods of implanting these artificial valves in humans.
Artificial or prosthetic heart valves can be classified according to the manner in which they are implanted in the body. Implantation of surgical valves requires an open-chest surgery during which the heart is stopped and the patient is placed on cardiopulmonary bypass. Transcatheter heart valves can be delivered and deployed in the body by way of catheterization without opening the chest of the patient or employing cardiopulmonary bypass. Minimally invasive heart valves generally refer to valves that can be introduced into the body through a relatively small surgical incision yet still require the patient to be placed on cardiopulmonary bypass.
The various types of heart valves described above typically include a relatively rigid frame and a valvular structure, usually in the form of flexible valve leaflets, secured to the frame. The process for assembling a prosthetic valve is extremely labor intensive. For example, FIG. 1 illustrates a known transcatheter heart valve 10 that includes a stent, or frame, 12, a valvular structure 14 comprising three leaflets 16, and a fabric skirt 18 interposed between the frame 12 and the valvular structure 14. To assemble the valve, the skirt 18 is manually sutured to the bars of the frame using sutures 20, and then the valvular structure is sutured to the skirt and the frame. The skirt assists in anchoring the valvular structure to the frame and sealing the valve relative to the native annulus so as to prevent perivalvular leakage once implanted. As can be appreciated, the process for assembling the valve is time consuming and requires significant manual labor. Thus, it would be desirable to minimize the amount manual labor required to assemble a prosthetic valve.